View full sizeMarion Co. Sheriff's OfficeJoshua Turnidge (left) and his father, Bruce Turnidge, were sentenced to death by a Marion County jury for their fatal bombing attack in 2008 of a Woodburn bank.

Not in our state, the jury said.

Not in Oregon will you plant a deadly bomb after years of scheming. Not here will you kill and maim police officers and find any sympathy from the public. Not here can a deliberate act of terrorism be excused as the bumbling of two misunderstood souls.

Earlier this month, the Marion County jury found the men guilty of 18 counts each of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and other charges related to a botched bank-robbery scheme. The men planted a bomb outside the bank that detonated during inspection, killing Oregon State Police Senior Trooper William Hakim and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant.

The blast also maimed Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell and injured bank employee Laurie Perkett. The Turnidges deserve, at a minimum, life in prison without parole for their abhorrent crimes against these four people.

They deserve execution for their crimes against Oregon.

By leaving a deadly bomb in a public place, the Turnidges violated the community's collective sense of safety. By targeting police officers, they punished all those in uniform who risk their lives to protect the public. And by harming innocent people to make an apparent point about their hatred of government, they engaged in a crude act of homegrown terrorism.

As prosecutors argued, the Turnidges don't belong in the general prison population.

But in this case, we have two men who planted a bomb a few weeks before Christmas. They tore families apart, and they violated the honor system upon which a free society depends. The death penalty is a fair sentence.